An honest blog on teaching, technology in education, and professional & personal development

International Dot Day

{Sent this out to my staff today. Every Friday, I send out a Tech Tips/Tricks email to all faculty/staff/admin/Board.}

This is Exciting!

OK, so it’s not truly Tech related, but it could have a lot of tech components…

International Dot Day is September 15. #DotDay is a celebration of creativity and individuality that was created by a classroom teacher, Terry Shay, when he read the book “The Dot” to his class on September 15, 2009. Since then, the anniversary of that reading has become a huge annual event, with (as of today!) more than 1 million participants from 61 countries signed up to participate this year. There’s even a Dot Song (and a Dot Song Video with lyrics) available this year.

I think it would be great to have everyone in D90 make their mark and sign it (you’ll have to read the book to understand) on September 15. Take lots of pictures or videos, and then we (I or another volunteer) can make a movie of our district’s celebration to share out to parent, families, and fellow classrooms worldwide (and when you get your classroom blogs, you can put it on there). I challenge each of you to make your own Dot, sign it, photograph it, and send me the picture. I will then collate them in a publishable format. We could even show the video of all the adults’ dots to the kiddos as an anticipatory activity (or we could post pictures of them and guess whose dots they are…). Here’s mine, made with some leftover jewelry pieces:

Since collaboration is a big piece of this event, I would suggest connecting with another class in another building in the district prior to the event. If you’re feeling brave, connect with another classroom in IL, the US, or even the world. Then, read the story and make your dots in the morning, and then connect with your partner classroom and share your dots in the afternoon (of course, if you’re in different time zones you’ll have to plan accordingly!). To find far-flung classes, jump onto Twitter and ask for a class using the #DotDay hashtag. If you need me to be an intermediary, let me know.

Speaking of #DotDay, the author, Peter Reynolds, and Terry Shay, the creator of DotDay, are often on there:

So, check out the website www.thedotclub.org and see what’s up. Be sure to watch the videos of what other classes have done. Another good resource is this blog post by Terri Eichholz. She has links to Celebrity Dots, Pinterest Boards, and an Educator’s Handbook. Check out FableVision’s blog that has a list of 20+ educator blogs that celebrate DotDay. For those of you with iPads, yes, we have the ColAR app mentioned in some of these blog posts (we used it at Math/Science/Tech night at EK last year), and you can use that to make 3D dots.

If you need help, let me or Durrelene, our literacy coach, know. We have so many ideas for this day that it’s a bit ridiculous. Stay tuned for this semester’s No Worksheet Week and the annual Hour of Code coming soon!